Breaking my Silence after 10 years

You guys, when I tell you, when I had the idea of doing this whole thing on my balcony, I thought it would be a smart idea, your girl is cold, but hey guys, welcome, welcome back to Am I Too Loud with Sophie aka the Audit A today's episode is going to be such a juicy one, because I am spilling all the tea, okay, all the tea on who the f**k I can I curse, who the fudge, who the fudge is the audity, I'm going to do like this like a play on who the fudge that I marry or who the fudge that I date, but instead this is like who the fudge is the audity, because you always tend to ask me like so many questions about where I'm from, what I do, and this is like a whole like entire episode based on who I am, because I want you guys to like understand who I am on the base level, like I'm going to intro you, intro you to my dreams, my goals, everything about me, and then where's we start full episodes, you understand the baseline of who Sophie aka the Audity is, are we ready to get into it, what do I start from you guys, so my mom and dad had sex and I think it was like not really good sex, because my mom claims that they had sex only one time, like he came in here and once like boom, boom, and then after that, I'm free, it's like, no I'm generally serious, let me explain to you guys if you're listening to this and you're not watching the video you should watch on YouTube, but if you're on Spotify listen to this or any other like platforms, I am so serious, those one time I got in trouble, and then my uncle was like oh you don't even know that it was only one time that happened, I was like what do you mean they're like oh like your mom says that it was only one time, because it wasn't supposed to happen, and then she found out she was pregnant and then you were conceived on June 25th 1997 on a Wednesday at 9am, so if you're one of those like astrological people listening in right now, yes, take that information, do my little chart, so you understand why my brain is the way it is, because if you're watching the podcast and you've watched any of my content online, you know my brain is just really wired so differently, and that's why the Audity itself makes sense, and you who, the point is after the sexation and I was born nine months later, my mom actually had a son before me, no, I would bother, he's 10 years older than me, and that's important to the story, because I think a lot of who I am as the Audity, as I honestly is Sophie, is based on the fact that me and my brother had such a long like age gap, but also he was my mom's favorite child, and I definitely feel like I'm going to have an episode where I talk about being my mom's least favorite child, mommy if you listen to this, I love you so much, you know I'm not lying, come on, wow they, you know, you know, but basically they sort of had like their own thing going, right, they had their own relationship, they had everything already figured out, and so when I came along, and especially with the circumstances that I actually came through, I definitely could tell that like I wasn't like the expected kid, and so a lot of my upbringing was me trying to prove myself to my family that I was meant to belong, right, so I remember like playing around with the cousins, my mom not being around all the time, I were there being like the one who was getting all the fun stuff in the house, like he was always close to home, we were really close even though we're 10 years apart, but it was definitely obvious that, you know, he and my mom had a rapport, and I was like the new kid of the block, which is weird to think about because we're siblings, but that was just how I grew up, and so I ended up spending a lot of my early childhood trying to navigate what life was like when I tried to prove myself, yo, one of the biggest things I like to say is I really, really think my mom always just forgot, she had a child, I know in a bad way, it was just like interesting, I was one time I graduated from primary school, and if you listen to this and you're like what is primary school, I think in America it's like middle school or the school before, yeah middle school or the school before that pre-K, like around that time, basically, between pre-K middle school, is this something before middle school, elementary elementary school, there we go, before elementary middle school, right, I was done with elementary school, and I think I was supposed to be going to a middle school such high school, and I remember just sitting at home, I graduated all that stuff, and my mom like walks in, she's about ahead to work, and she looks at me, she's like what are you doing here, and I'm like what do you mean what am I doing here, what are you doing here, and she's like why aren't you in school, I'm like because I finished school, it's like what do you mean you finished school, I'm like yeah, I mean like I graduated like last month or two months ago, I'm supposed to be going to the next school, and she was like oh really, I'm like yes, really, yes of course, I'm supposed to be graduating, and so it was such an interesting process to try to call people, beg people, do the exams, and I remember it then thinking oh my god, I'm going to have to be the ones that fed for myself, and be like you know the kid who like asked to make sure she's on her stuff, so I wouldn't like bother, and I'm not saying this as like as a knock to my mom or the parents, because that's not the case at all, it was also a lot going on, but I think mentally for me in my head, I was seeing these experiences very very differently as a child, so I went through high school, and I just made sure, you guys, I made sure I excel, like I mean 4.0 student, doing being a inquire, being like best in the class, doing all the activities, because I was always trying to prove myself, and that literally followed me all through secondary schools, high school, and all through so life went to college as well, okay so yeah, I think this is when life for me just actually changed, and if you're listening to this on audio, you just see my face right now, because I'm like geeky, because high school for me was where I realized okay, I can actually prove myself, and there was like metrics to decide whether I was doing good or not, like if I did well in school, I got an A star, while I was the best student, I was a prefect, like that was my goal, it was like I my mom would come for visiting day, oh yeah, duh, I didn't even tell you all this, I was in boarding school, so I again, maybe I didn't say this earlier as well, I'm Nigerian, I was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, boarding Nigeria, and in Nigeria, typically like most kids will go to boarding school, what they call day school, day school is when you don't sleep in the school, basically, but I wasn't boarding school, and even then I was still choose to, I still chose to go to the boarding school that was so far away from home, because I didn't want to bother my mom and my brother, like I didn't feel like I wanted to, y'all I don't want this to be sad or whatever, because it's really not, I'm trying to explain who Sophie actually is and why I'm the way I am, but yeah, I would, I tried my best stay far away from home, so I wouldn't be the stressor, like I wouldn't be in that mix, I didn't want to have to see them interact and be like, oh damn, I wish she would always ask me about this, so she would care more about what I'm doing, and blah blah blah, so I get to high school, boarding school, it was hell, honestly, I think I want to do a whole episode where I talk about like my boarding school experience itself, because I am telling you right now, if you went to a boarding school in Nigeria, honestly, in any African country, you can survive anything, if you're wondering right now, I was Sophie, aka the oddity, I just love saying my new word, but if you ever wondered how I got to where I am from from today, it is because of those experiences, I'm talking, you're seniors, the folks ahead of you are having sex on the bed while they're putting you on the bed, because they want you to hear them having said, well, they also want, because of the bed is like low wire thing, they want you to be, you're head banging against that, so you're, so you know, you make sure that, they make sure you get punished for anything, you're standing on the, they're standing on the balcony and you have to run to make sure their clothes don't touch the grass, or else you're going to get punished for it, you're a hit, you're beat, like you're washing the clothes, you're sending errands, like you're giving them your food, like you weren't torn and broken down into pieces, like I'm telling you, and it was normal, like that was the norm, that wasn't any weirdness, it didn't seem like it was different from what was supposed to be the expectation, and I think that was the scariest thing, but also then when you're in it, you don't feel like crazy, I remember maybe like some students who come from America and would have like accents who came from the UK would be there, but we all like wore the same uniform, we all didn't, we couldn't get the same like food and access, and unless your parents came for visiting day and then they would see, you would see your parents' cars or something, you're really not, you're not really seeing like the social economic differences, if anything you're just going to beat up, like you're just going punished, you're like, you know, you're just getting bullied, and I think that's it, I think most of the class came from how strong you were, like how well you can manipulate things, maybe that's why I'm a manipulator, interesting, that's tea, because I feel so tea y'all, I don't know if it's a cigarette, but I'm going to say it anyways, I was also like the favorite of like our house mistress, our matron, so I think everybody just thought I was a snitch, like they just thought like, oh, if we do this for this girl, we're going to snitch, so it tended to like also feel like I had to play the, the feels a bit, any who, the point is, now it was just like a struggle, and I think that's what made me who I am, and I used to hide that from my mom, like I didn't want her to take me out of school and put me somewhere else, so I would not tell if I was struggling, I would not tell her if I, you know, hated it or anything like that, would just always be like happy and fun going and loving, is that why I pretend a lot now if I'm sad? No, I'm telling you this is really giving therapy y'all, let's think about it for a second, the tea of it, oh, hold on, I'm thinking about it right now, y'all, the tea of it all, because I would have to pretend that I was okay, so like no one would get in trouble, and like they weren't going to trouble me trying to anybody else, and maybe that's why I mask my feelings, and I am the way I am right now as an adult, a whole 27, because I used to do that when I was 13, 14, 15, oh, stupid, period, therapy, anyways, continuing on to who the fudge is selfie, I graduated from school, top of my class, and y'all, I'm going to say this story, but only because it's so pivotal to like where I came, and I'm also, I am like waving brushstrokes, I don't think that's the word brushstrokes, what is the atom? So I'm just thinking about it right now, okay, so high school brushstrokes, brushstrokes, some strokes, high school happens, and I graduate, maybe top 10 in my class, in academics, but even more so graduating like a social, like I was a social prefect, because y'all, I was made for this, y'all, I was made for TV, I want my goal of the dream, wants to be an entertainer, I just didn't know that, because oh, the T, I have ADHD, but I could be a whole another episode, or what that means is on this podcast, this is so, this is really, this is gonna get, because selfie is going to say one topic and dive to topic number five, and hopefully I am reminded by my producer, I have to go back to topic number one, okay, so, the T, I was social prefect as well, and I remember like always joining like the choir, dance, dance group, all that stuff, and every time I was shared that with my mom should always tell me like, how's your academics, like it wasn't ever excitement about the entertainment part of it, or it was more so like, that's not gonna pay your bills, your brother is a doctor, you're gonna be a lawyer, although I did once be a lawyer too, because I thought lawyers were fancy, but ideally, I always just knew like, I felt the happiest when I was making other people happy dancing and all that stuff, so let's put that to the side of it, so because of that, I was really good at academics to please my mom, and I was also really good in social, like social aspect, because I really enjoyed it, I get a scholarship to like, be like the gift for my class, for being like the social prefect and everything like that, I'm gonna try if you're watching the YouTube audience, like play a little clip of it, because it actually exists on YouTube, I'm gonna link it in the description too, of being like the top student in my class, basically for social academic stuff, and it was like a gift of 1 million Nira, which is equivalent to, I was 1 million R, and then, yo, okay, so in 2013, you guys, we just did the math, it was $6,600, that's what I won, basically, when I like finished high school, in 2024, it is 600 Dylies, Dylies, that's scary, oh my god, so that was huge for me, right, no one had it in her account, loved that for me, and then we started applying to schools, ended up going to university, in Nigeria, again, to study law, so I started my first year in law, and again, you guys, I was trying to be a model, trying to be an entertainer, while also doing law school, top of my class, you know, asking questions, getting known, like if you listen to this, and you knew me then in law school, they would literally tell you, Sophie was always everywhere, and this is where I think my villain arch, my villain story, came in, because, yo, I don't know why, I feel like I've actually spoken about this a few times here, and they were, I've actually never talked about it, clearly, but this is where, with the fudge, is Sophie, or the audit, they actually like stamps, so I was in my first year of law school, or like being a law student in Nigeria, and I am doing so well, there's two instances I think shape a lot of like my life decisions now, first of it was some 400 level student getting some interest in me, so this wasn't just my boyfriend, but some guy, I was assaulted by this 400 level student, and when that happened, I remember thinking to myself, you know, this is not your fault, you didn't do this, you didn't do anything for yourself, I don't want to, I don't want to unpack that later on in a different episode, especially when I talk about like sex and sexual violence and stuff like that too, so I'm just gonna pull that there, and just have you guys understand that that happened to me, and one of the biggest things also is, there's one day I am currently in law school, and I get an invite to a professor's office, and this particular professor calls me to his office, and he sits me down, and he goes, you know, da da da da da, what's your name? I give him my name and everything, and he's looking at me, and he's saying, yo, I feel like I actually never said the story like this, but he's basically like, I like you, I want to start having sex with you, you're gonna come to my chambers every, I'll never forget this, you're gonna come to my chambers every Tuesday and Thursday in the area of office, and you're gonna be my new thing, and I remember looking at him, and I was like 15 or 2016 or something, and I looked at him, and I said, sir, I'm only 15, and he said, people younger than you have done it, and I remember like, yo, I remember, I remember seeing, like, I remember the interaction, I remember what I was wearing that day, I remember a lot of these things that were happening, and I remember feeling so angry and lost and confused and just frustrated, because in many ways, it just felt like he had the audacity, like, because that never, the incident with the foreigner loves you, and it already just happened to me, and that happened, and I remember trying to talk to my classmates about it, just briefly trying to get a vibe I was going on, and they all said, that was normal, like, oh yeah, the professor pitched you, that means you're gonna pass school, you're gonna pass class, or something like that, and I remember being like, this can't be the norm, and I refused, I refused to entertain the professor, I refused to engage in anything, and then I was getting harassed every fucking day, like, I'll get calls from strange numbers, threats threatening me, telling me that I wasn't gonna, like, I was gonna fail out of school, they're gonna film me, the entire degree, that if I try to report the professor, I was going to get in trouble for it, and at the end of the day, I ended up being assaulted by that professor too, and I think from me, I remember calling my brother that day, actually, I don't think I've ever told anyone in my family this full story in that way, hi mom, but that happened, and I remember calling my brother, and just telling him that I can't stay here anymore, and I remember vividly how angry I was, because he was like, oh no, we'll come to the school, we're gonna find him, I just didn't want them to look at me as to earn away, and I just literally remember telling him, I just want to go home, like, come take me, I don't want to be here anymore, I want to go home, and I did, went back to Lagos, what was next, because I remember thinking, this just wipes my entire slate, I'm gonna have to reapply to universities again, I'm gonna have to reapply to do this, I don't know if I'm gonna stay in school anymore, I didn't know what to do, I felt like all my dreams were sort of lost, and I felt like I didn't have anything, sorry y'all, you know, I said, oh, I said, you know when I'm feeling emotional, but I'm okay, I'm okay, but just felt like I didn't have anything going on, and I had an uncle who was like a father figure to me, who lived in America at the time, and I just always remember that I wanted to go to America, like I wanted to be in the country, and I was like, this is the time, right, I've been trying to tell my family and tell my parents that I really, my mom wanted to see that, I really wanted to come to America, and I felt like this was the time, final time to do it, so I stole the money, random, but I remember I were like plotting to take the money from my mom's account, that way we could pay for SATs and IELTS, and all the exams that we had, so I could come to America, and I passed my SATs, really good score, I passed my IELTS, and these are like, these are exams that you can take to come here, and I got admitted into a university in West Virginia, and Sophie left home, um, at 17, I came in July, and I think I just turned 17 that June from not mistaken, and I remember the running joke with my friend who then was like, she's 17, she's so young, like, that she's not legal, 17 she's not legal, because I had like all the Africa's in my university then, fun fact around this time, I still wasn't Sophie, my name is actually Adirum Keh, and Adirum Keh means the Crown has seen something to pamper or to treasure, and um, yeah, I feel like I'm telling this to me, I'm trying to gloss past so many things that have happened in my life, but I'm sorry if I'm not saying this in the most sensational way, or in the most like, perfect way, but this is me, and this is me being vulnerable, I get to America, I remember introducing myself with the first day of class, and I told the professor, hi, my name is Adirum Keh, Ibrahim, I'm from Lagos, Nigeria, and you know, my goal is to be a lawyer, something whenever you do those icebreakers, and this professor looks back to me and says, oh, like, I don't care, and I remember saying, the fuck? No, that's not my name, and I was like, I was supposed to get it back, and that professor too was the first person who called me the N word when I first came to America, so many things, y'all, so I remember saying no, the fuck, not, I don't care, and I was like, you know what, actually, my name is Sophie, and Sophie actually was born from my middle name, Sophia, which means beauty or wisdom in Arabic, and that is how Sophie was born, and Sophie decided to chase her dreams in America, so that is like my Nigerian side of my life, I am currently 27, so that was 10 years ago, and I came to this country with a pledged around $6,000 to $5,000 for my mom, that this is the money that you were given, I'm going to try to raise some money, but at some point, we can't afford university for you, so you're going to have to figure it out. So this was a 17-year-old girl looking around America like, let's do this, okay, because remember, my mom is a single mom, and my brother was also still in school, he was going to be a doctor and all that stuff, and I ended up transferring universities, moving to Louisiana where I spent the entirety of my bachelor's career, again, I got to do a whole episode of like, life in college, because I really want to tell you all about like, the but I went to college and studied political science and pre law, at some point in college, I couldn't afford school anymore, I was on the verge of being deported, I went to my university, and I told them, I will work my bones out, and I start y'all, you know, I think this is a story where it really isn't, this is really how I survived, I was literally, I was braiding hair, I was working on the cover, I got my green card on, I can't do this kind of, I want to see if we can cut this out, I was doing so many things, y'all, I don't want to cry, am I crying? No, make a book so pretty, I can't, but yeah, I went to my university and I told them, I would work day and day out for that university, I will be on student government president, I will be decent, I will do everything you need me to do, just please don't let me go back to Nigeria, I have no life there anymore, I want to start a new life here, and that is literally how the fudge I got a scholarship, I can full-fledged scholarship, all my tuition was paid for, I just got to figure out housing, so I was a resident assistant, if you know you know college life, basically, remember I told you guys I was in boarding school, that's where those things came in, right? Because I went to boarding school, I was a prefect, I knew the house was doing everything, so I knew how to handle having residents that are under me, I knew I was under the boarding situation of college life in America, so I feel like a lot of the issues with college life here is, it's basically like boarding school, well elevated boarding school here, if especially if you don't live at home when you live on campus, so I used all those skills to survive being in school, and when I degraded my bachelor's, I was thinking of going to law school or going to get my master's, I couldn't afford to go to law school, so I decided to try to get my master's, and again, who will go and pay for that, Sophie, who is going to pay? So again, I started scarring the internet, and I realized I could be a grad resident assistant, again boarding school life came back full circle, and so I applied to be a grad assistant, I got into my tuition, and my accommodation was all paid for, I just had to work for the university, so I would get paid, and that is how I also started doing my master's, I got a master's in peace and conflict studies, I started doing my master's, and y'all are probably not wondering, okay Sophie, we now know how Sophie was born, we know your story, we know your history with Nigeria, whether fudge did the audit be come from, y'all. That is a story for another day, however, I'm going to give you again wide brush strokes on where the audit came from, so I'm in university, like I told you guys I had to work my butt off in uni to get my life together, if you tend to know Africans, and this is so broad, so forgive me if I might sound like a meanie, but in my bachelor's degree that time being me was weird, right, think about it, this is some girl who came from Nigeria, who is friends with every single person on campus, who is always constantly trying to be the best in academics, who is an SGA, who is a UPC, who is, you know, speaking with an American accent, she's trying to change her accent, because she's trying to survive, whose, you know, family doesn't have money, so like what she doing here, actually we go to Plato's closet to get, like I was a bit chaotic, I was absolutely not the norm, especially around international students, this is also around the time social media was becoming cool, especially in America, so I would find myself in these spaces where I really want to start a YouTube channel to document my life, but I remember I had an ex of the time who would tell me like if I ever did that, like he was gonna dump me, I had friends at the time who would tell me, like that's embarrassing, I just felt like I wasn't able to be my true self, especially again, think about it, I am the slangian who's in this country, who does not know what the fudge is going on a half the time, I'm just trying to survive, so I was like you know what, let me start a vlog, like what does it look like for me to just write, because I used to write a lot, I loved writing, so one day I decided you know what, I'm gonna bite the ball, I'm gonna do it, and it was gonna start a vlog, and I was like what can I call this vlog, because I don't want it to be associated with Sophie, I don't care, Ibrahim, I want it to be this escape, this alter ego, this person who can unapologetically share who she is without the association of Sophie, and so I really remember, I was telling my friends about it, and they were like I could never do that, so that's so weird, and I said hmm, this word again, so I googled weird synonyms, y'all, and odd came out, oddity came out, but oddity d-i-t-y, and I was like oddity, oddity, oddity, oddity, and I was like I like that, like how it flows in my mouth, and so I was like okay I think the oddity works, but of course I didn't want to just, I felt like okay I'm also like weird like that you guys, because when you see oddity with the one T, it just looked like it's not complete, like that word it so it just feels like it's not complete, so I was like if I throw an extra T in it, maybe it's gonna look better, so I was like oh the oddity, and it worked out really well, so I opened an Instagram page called the oddity, opened a blog page called www.theodity.com, and every week I would post like blog posts about life in a PWI, which is like a predominantly white institution, I was a black girl making friends, I just started like sharing like stories about myself, like if you read my old captions on Instagram y'all I think I was a mess, I was so emotional, I didn't have any support, I was having a lot of issues with family, we would get into this in a religion episode and a family episode, because there's so much I could share about like navigating that dynamic even, that was pretty much it, that's where the oddity was born, I started the oddity in 2017, right before I graduated my bachelor's, this was right when I felt like okay, I had some semblance of stability, I was feeling better about myself, I was stronger than I'd ever been, and I could make new leaves, and that's what I did, and so I started the blog, and I blogged through when I got my master's, I blogged through when I started modeling, and photoshoots everything that young Sophie, who that professor looked at across his fucking desk, everything she had dreamed of, she could achieve in Nigeria at the time, she was doing it online on the biggest stage, in a way that she would have never dreamt of doing, and I think that to me was like my arch, right, it was like my way of saying I am taking everything that was supposed to be mine, I'm going to use it to my advantage, I'm going to like make that leap and just kill it, and so I literally had, I felt like it was a split personality type of thing, where Sophie, Irene was 4.0 student, grad resident assistant, boss did not wear any makeup when she was in school, looks raggedy, I was like so later focused on making sure I did not lose my scholarships, I got all the degrees, so I could give them all that diploma and say mommy, here you go, I have an everything you want from me, and then the oddity was my way of just being unapologetically honest about life, like I wish you guys understood how lost I would get, I think that's why my followers, if you're watching this, are you listening, I love you so much, if you've been following me since 2017 when I started, you know how much I would go online and talk about how scared I was for the future, how hard it was to find a job, how terrifying America was, navigating all this stuff, and I just felt so supported, like there was some young girl out there who would see me struggling and just realized there was hope for all of us, and that's really what it was, it became Sophie struggling to get her degree versus the oddities trying to make it in this entertainment space, and that really was what life was for a really long time, and then I graduated from my master's right when COVID actually hit, and I think that's when everything changed for me. I graduated 2020 mid-pandemic, and y'all, while this is happening, I am still social media doing the oddity, but if you've not been following along closely, I'm going to remind you that I am still an immigrant, I am still an international student at this point, and that is, I definitely want to do a video dedicated to just immigrants who navigate the American immigration space. One of these days, I'm going to do that, but for right now, I'm just going to limit it to the fact that as an immigrant, you never sort of know how to rest, right? Because what tends to happen is you start out, you come in with an F1 visa or something, and then you navigate the first four years. Your entire goal, if you're trying to stay in the country, is how to get a job at the end of those four years, and then once you're doing your bachelor's, you either try to get a job or you're going to try to get another degree so you can stay. I've got another degree, so now I'm on my master's, day one of my master's degree. My next thought isn't to enjoy this degree, learn from this degree, none of that. The next thing is, if this degree is done, what am I doing next? Because you have a year, maybe even eight months to figure out what your next prove is. And so imagine all of that pressure navigating with social media attention, because I'm still posting little videos. I'm at like 5,000, 7,000 followers right now. I'm getting traction here and there. It's fun. I'm an engagement community. I have a YouTube channel. I'm not consistent, but I'm still sharing. It's like my little bubble on the internet. So they're still working pretty well, but they're still very far apart. And then COVID hits, and we're all beginning to isolate. I'm about to graduate in May. Social media is doing well at go to Nigeria to visit for the first time. I have seen the impact of my community and my story. I'm feeling really good in both fronts, right? I'm getting into this master's and doing well. Social media is doing well. My mom is looking at me from the corner in Nigeria. Girl, where's this law degree? Are you going to be a lawyer? What's happening? Are you going to get a job? Where's the money coming from? Where are you going to live? Are you going to say in DC? Are you going to do all of it? No one is telling me here's the plan. I have to make this plan myself. That's the thing. No one is no blueprint for this at this time. I am panicked. I am depressed. I am sad. I am stressed out. I am scared. I don't imagine a world where I go back to Nigeria because my mom is not like for me, my mom, from my mom, then that's failure. Like everything she's done till that point was failure. Everything had done till that point was failure. So COVID hits. And I'm sitting at home, job haunting begins, right? If you went through job haunted during COVID, you know, you know how terrifying that was. And that's not even adding the fact that I'm an immigrant to the situation. So the jobs are asking you, do you have a work permit? Do you have access to this? Do you do that? And if you tell them, no, you're not even getting in the door. They're just like, buy peace out. That's it. So I'm bored out of my mind. And I remember I'm trying on some jeans, right? I'm posting a Snapchat because I have a friend who I have a streak with on Snapchat. That's my friend. I'm posting a streak and I share I'm wearing jeans and I'm like, oh, my butt is thick. Literally, yeah. Literally. This is like Sophie so unfiltered with my friend then. This was the one time in a really long time where I felt like I wanted to be happy. And I was just having such a good time that day trying on clothes for some reason. I send that video to her and she goes, you should post that on Twitter. And I was like, what? She's like, Sophie, that was so funny. You made me laugh. I'm having a rough day. You should post that on Twitter. Someone's going to think that's funny. And this time, no Instagram, Reels or videos aren't a thing like that's still like weird to do like Instagram. So the photo app, TikTok was not really like bomb like that. Twitter was like wild, wild west. I'm like, girl, that's insane. I'm like, I'm just doing like, it's fun. I have like 2000 followers in Twitter. My first I'm going to see anyways that video, I think I'm going to try to find if we could find the stats later on got me, I think I got like five million views. And that was like my first ever huge viral video. And that video changed my entire life like entire life. I started posting more content. I posted the video, my I'm a bad bitch with my black bits. And that's where people started like, know what to sing me? And they were talking about like me being so positive, maybe so excited, me being so original, me being so real. And I was like, what y'all, what? I was looking at them like, y'all, I'm not, this is not a bit. This is not some plan. This is not anything. This is just me existing. And you guys see that you think this is something special. I would never forget that feeling in my entire life. My goal for social media was never to have a million followers or have five million followers. It was literally just for me to share the good, the bad, the fun, the ugly, the process. I cry online 24 seven. Like that was the goal. And for that video to do so one, other videos do so when people started following me just because I wanted to hear what I had to say, how I wanted to inspire them. It felt like something was going right in my life at that time. Mind you, I hear 100K. Oh, 100,000 followers on Instagram, on Twitter, TikTok is also 100K. I'm like set. Management teams are coming in. Audities blowing up. I still can't get paid because I live in America and another immigrant. All of this is fancy, all schmancy, whatever. But every day, I'm so, I can't get paid from this money because again, I'm still an immigrant. It's not legal to work when it's not connected to your degree. So now I'm looking like how do I exist in this space and still crave this content, so survive when Sophie is still trying to find a job because she needs to stay in this country. Or do I go back to Nigeria? It is September 2020. I am still job searching. I am 60 days away from when I would have to leave the country. Or maybe 54, 34 days, I think actually. I am 34 days away from when I have to leave the country. And I get an email with a job offer, my first job ever fully. And it was the dream job. And I remember falling down crying. Mind you, I just hear 100K, I just done this and all of that would have meant nothing if I couldn't just stay in the country and figure it out. So I got my first job and I worked my butt off and it connected so well with my current thing that was doing because I ended up being a communications manager and specialist there. And that was how I ended up having or being able to stay in the country post that. And I remember getting my first check and also getting an offer from a brand and seeing how those align and I was like, oh my god, what if Sophie and the Audity could exist in a similar reality but still different? And what would that life look like? And so it has been an interesting experience navigating, trying to figure out what would happen if I did stay in that job and be a lawyer and do all these things and to follow the academic route or be at the Audity and double down. So in 2022, I quit my job and I fully went and dive straight into being a full-time content creator because then the Audity was doing so well. I had stability with my immigration stuff. I was content. I was happy and I was really just proud of myself. And that's really where like the Audity is sort of like taking off now and I started doing more YouTube videos, more videos, my content, my life, my stories about my life. It's so much more and it is still such a learning process figuring out how to navigate this struggle and that past and how I want to tell that story versus what does it look like now to actually have the freedom to do so. So I have the freedom now. I have the choice and it is still sort of like scary. It is still something that I still don't know how to navigate but I'm working on it and it's been an interesting ride so far. Being Sophie for me is always represented like I don't want to say I was broken but I will because I felt like Sophie for me was someone who was chasing after her family's approval, chasing after like this academic sort of like understanding or academic gratification. What does that work? Sophie was chasing after the accolades trying to survive. Sophie what oh my god Sophie is the survivor. She's the young Nigerian immigrant who just kept going through all the odds, kept going through all the pain, kept going through all the issues, all the fear, all the stigma, everything. Sophie just kept going and at some point Sophie finally found a semblance of peace when the oddity came into the picture because that freedom that she shared or she got from being the oddity allowed her to rest and so I think the audience for me represents like freedom. I can represent being that again Nigerian immigrant girl who dares to dream, who dares to live, who dares to take charge and choose the life she wants for herself and I am so scared you guys because the amount of things I want to say on this podcast I think my family would hate me for it. I think people are going to have opinions about it. I don't support mine. I think people are going to think I'm this. I think you're going to I think you're going to find out that I am much more than the girl who's always smiling. I think you're going to find out that I am. I have a lot of layers to me. I think you're going to find out that I can be upset, I can be selfish, I can be annoying, I can be jealous, I can be happy, I can be sad, I can be envious, I can be so many different things that make humans human. But I also think you're going to find out that that's the whole point of being an oddity, right? It's like you're going to want to be you and being you is always going to be different because there's no other youth exists. So this is going to be such a fun ride. I don't want to cry. This is going to be such a fun ride. This podcast has been in the making for four freaking years and I was terrified because again, so if we didn't have the stability, she didn't have the audience, she didn't have the access, she didn't have the freedom. And now the oddity does and only the things we're about to get into you are not ready for because am I too loud? Hey, the answer is always now. I love you guys. Thank you so much for listening and watching. I hope you enjoyed something or you got something out of the story. I can't wait to see you on my next episode. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe to the YouTube channel if you're watching on YouTube and follow the podcast and all the platforms for all the audio. I will see you on my next podcast. I love you. Bye.